Kingwood: Dinosaur fossils must be seriously reconstructed – cleaned, assembled and even painted – before T. rex can overrun the museum or Triceratops can show off its giant horns.
For US recovery Lauren McClain, it’s like putting together a giant 3D puzzle.
McClain’s work began in his home workshop near Houston, Texas, where he used a small drill with an air compressor similar to a dentist’s tool to remove more than 60 million pieces of debris.
Then you have to assemble this ancient puzzle, although the pieces are almost always missing.
This makes fillings for missing parts, plug holes, and repair nicks that have appeared in Edmontosaurus femurs or Megalodon teeth over millions of years. He even worked on a 200-million-year-old Eurypterida fossil, or sea urchin.
McClain says he doesn’t really like messes.
But “when I’m a dinosaur … I can get down with that bulgur,” the 33-year-old said.
“When you get something that is made up of hundreds of pieces, you have to learn all the edges and how they fit together, and you have to learn the details to actually rebuild it,” said McClain.
The once mighty McClain ranged across what is now the United States, from Florida in the southeast to Montana and the Dakotas in the north and California in the west.
McClain has been a dinosaur buff since he was a childhood fan of Asura Park. He even held his wedding at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, home to several dino skeletons.
While working as a graphic designer, McClain first got involved in fossil excavation a few years ago and, with the help of some professional paleontologists, founded a restoration company called Big Sky Fossils.
Seven months ago, he left his desk to focus fully on his company.
Recently, McClain worked on the cranial dome of a Pachycephalosaurus belonging to the Texas Museum and worked in his garage to restore a hadrosaurid femur while looking for more space to expand his workshop.
First, an iron rod is inserted into the femur for stability. Then, he gave it a good clean and used strong glue to hold all the pieces together. Then epoxy putty filled all the gaps left by dust. Finally, McClain painted all new parts in the original color.
According to David Tempel, curator of paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, moviegoers believe that dinosaur fossils are being dug up.
“But it’s not like that,” he said.
“Every relic found needs some level of restoration, some level of restoration, some level of consolidation, because even taking it out of the ground is dangerous,” said Temple, speaking in the Carthaginian section of the museum.
After restoration, the original remains are also used to create life-like replicas so that multiple versions of the same model can be displayed in multiple locations simultaneously.
“Most paleontologists prepare their own fossils, but not all,” Tempel said. “A lot of times people who do it realize it’s a special skill.”
Sometimes, when bone fragments that don’t quite fit together stick together, paleontologists and restorers say they have discovered a “new species”.
“Patience is important, observation is very important,” he said.
Above all, Temple said, recovery efforts require care.
